First I want to say good job to everybody involved. This has been kept a discussion and hasn't turned into a flaming contest.
There IS a problem. Most of the people who are saying induct earlier are arguing for the way the problem was solved in the past. That very well may not be the way to solve it now. There has to be a way to let the outsiders become insiders.
Maybe some of you learned by mad ranking to 50 and carrying on at the top. Obviously, all you newer player have. But I didn't. I learned by defending the cabal against the enemy cabal leader at an eight rank disadvantage. I learned by being the noob cabal guy at lvl 33 getting smoked for jokes by some uncabaled puke. I think that new players should have a chance to learn in a way similar to that.
There has to be a point to playing. There has to be a reason to come back and a reason to put forth the effort to make a decent character. The first cabal app I submitted was accepted. Of course, I hadn't even heard of training. And I got laughed at. I had to hear of it to do it.
There's two sides to this. One side wants the best to be cabaled. Amen. The other side wants something for the lonely average players to give them an opportunity to build. Another amen. A quick idea... and I mean real quick... is to merge the old and new styles of cabals. Screw the 30k entrance fee for getting into a clan. It isn't enough. Make people apply. Give everyone above the rank of member the ability to induct (w/the 30k processing fee) if they meet base standards (ok app, some training, etc). There has to be more to the clan than automated quests. I'm still trying to come up with an idea for improving clan RP. There needs to be more of a reason to join a clan than because you want to join the cabal.
And my 2 cents are up.